


malcolm/reese ship manifesto

by merrymelody



Category: Malcolm in the Middle
Genre: Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 21:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17454719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymelody/pseuds/merrymelody





	malcolm/reese ship manifesto

**Malcolm: A whiny obsessive know it all**

The titular character, Malcolm stands out in his family – domineering mother Lois, pushover father Hal, troublemaker Francis, bully Reese, and baby Dewey – due to his genius level IQ. Despite his brains, Malcolm struggles socially due to tendency to complain, obsess and act superior. ‘I have this need to show off. It's not enough that I know more than everyone. I have to make sure they know I know more.’

In the first three seasons, Malcolm unwillingly befriends classmates in the accelerated classes, the Krelboynes, however he is in the ‘middle’ here also, as they tend to be comfortable in their isolation from mainstream student society, as well as from more socially privileged backgrounds. Aside from his best friend Stevie, the Krelboynes are not seen past S3, when Malcolm attends high school.   
Malcolm’s superiority complex – when the opportunity to jettison the Krelboynes arises, he admits ‘I’m shallow’ and ignores them – and being constantly grounded by disciplinarian Lois; means his closest companion is often brother Reese.

Hal and Lois are a little intimidated by their son’s intellect, although not above using it for their own benefits. Malcolm does their taxes, and contributes financially to the family, and when offered an escape in form of scholarships and job offers, their reliance keeps him at home. 

On his graduation day, his mother reveals that their ultimate plan as parents is that he should be miserable until he learns humility, attending an Ivy league school while supporting himself as a janitor to the end result that he becomes president and defends the poor. Malcolm is stunned, but when Lois presses him to say he’s not capable, he remains silent.

While Malcolm certainly has the brains to succeed, and shares his mother’s passion for justice, it’s been suggested that there’s a darker reading of this.  
Malcolm’s bitterness can be directed inwardly as well as outwardly – an episode in which he attempts to hold his tongue shows his life becoming much easier, showing how much he sabotages himself, but his inner monologue gradually becomes a demonic roar, and he ends up developing an ulcer. He meets a bitter loser in the park playing chess in an episode entitled Future Malcolm; and his attempt at playing a Sims style game in which he gives his avatar the qualities he believes he possesses (brains 10 out of 10, looks a modest 9) results in his character self-harming, drinking and committing suicide.   
In one episode, Lois imagines her sons were daughters. While initially Mallory, Renee and Daisy seem angelic, it’s later revealed they have their own issues, in Mallory/Malcolm’s case an eating disorder.   
Malcolm’s teacher Mr Herkabe is also presented as an adult mirror of him; a achiever in school turned cruel, jealous jerk with mommy issues; and he takes great delight in pointing out Malcolm’s lack of self-awareness. 

**Reese – A ruthlessly brutal thug**

Reese is the second oldest of the Wilkersons. While the show title is ‘Malcolm in the Middle’, each child is isolated in some way from their siblings - Francis by physical distance, Malcolm by intellect, and Dewey by his youth. Reese is isolated as the idiot.   
While he’s determined enough to achieve goals he puts mind to (he succeeds in ploys involving blackmail and extortion, as well as his purposeful attempt to fail every exam in order to stay back a year. He also is a successful telemarketer, and when separated from his family, is capable of swiftly raising his grades) and has a measure of psychological insight into other’s behaviour; he’s the family underachiever, in comparison to Malcolm’s genius; Dewey’s musical talent, and Francis’s charm and manipulative skills.

Reese has a tendency towards instability and manias, and is easily persuaded. He also has wild mood swings, in common with other members of his family – Hal mentions crying all summer when he hit puberty, and Lois notes when Malcolm takes to his bed that Francis and Reese behaved similarly. Hal is also neurotic and destructive, which Malcolm and Reese seem to have respectively inherited. Reese can be a victim of his own imagination – at one point describing how he conquers fear of objects such as frogs, thunder and mailboxes by turning fear into hate and breaking them. He also claims to be able to smell shame and taste fear. Sometimes his panicking causes him to fail when he possesses the skills to succeed, such as his driving exam. 

Reese is protective of family and friends, knocking out a burglar, as well as tackling bullies picking on Malcolm, Dewie or Stevie. He can take on a nurturing role, cooking for the family, raising a crop of butterflies, and turning down the opportunity to make out with beautiful girls in order to return baby Jamie’s dummy.   
While he is a bully; when he ceases picking on others, his replacement in the school pecking order by a bigger bully without his standards leads to cheering when his reign of terror is restored. Reese has an odd sense of justice, illustrated by his icing his lower body until paralyzed in order to fight Stevie, Malcolm’s friend who uses a wheelchair. 

Reese, like Dewey, mentions hearing voices, although as he gets older, the ‘sensible’ voice gradually drowns out the crazy one. Like Malcolm, he can also be paranoid , in his case exacerbated by his inferiority complex about intellect – he mentions how he assumes people are laughing at him, and that ‘everybody’s talking about things I could never understand’. 

Reese is the loneliest of the brothers. Dewey and Francis are the respective favourites of their siblings, and popular with classmates. Malcolm has Stevie, a fellow genius, but Reese is friendless. While Malcolm is either admired by fellow Krelboynes, or despised; Reese in his later years of schooling is unnoticed, a nobody. 

Perhaps this is why he seems self-loathing – Francis and Dewey externalise their issues, blaming Hal and Lois’ parental cruelty and neglect respectively. Malcolm vacillates between being angry at world and himself, but Reese internalises almost completely (as demonstrated when Stevie and Malcolm request he retrace his afternoon activities, which include an attempt to do math, followed by calling himself stupid and telling the mirror ‘I hate you’.) While Hal (no mental giant himself) is most comfortable with Reese, he has ‘given up’ on his son achieving anything. Lois is protective, believing Reese needs her in a way Malcolm doesn’t, as Malcolm is guaranteed to succeed in any circumstances. Even Renee, Reese’s female alternate, is ‘sweet and thoughtful’ but confesses ‘I hate being dumb’. 

Reese can be masochistic, paying a bully to beat him up, and requesting his brothers tie him up. However, despite this, Reese is surprisingly capable of self-motivation –it may be that like Francis, his early lack of achievement is encouraged by his parents low expectations. From an early age, Reese has a lack of interest in the future, envisioning cleaning the pools of the Krelboynes he victimises, and expresses fear that without his closest companion, Malcolm, he’ll be left alone, even flunking on purpose for an extra year, placing in Malcolm’s class. 

**Pairing – I liked you better when we were gay.**

The MitM show can be described in TV trope terms as a jerk ass/crapsack world. Gender and incest jokes are not uncommon – Malcolm catching mono from his mom cleaning his face is described as ‘disgusting…making out’, while Lois comments ‘you’re like your father in bed’ to Malcolm’s disgust. Dewey and Malcolm as the youngest two share a bed, and an episode where they get a new mattress plays on the implication as they enthusiastically discuss how ‘last night was wonderful’. 

There’s also an episode in which Reese falls in love with a girl based on her diary, not knowing it was his mother’s from high school; and Malcolm’s first kiss has this exchange: 

‘You’re going to kiss me and you’re thinking about your brother?’   
‘No, I was thinking about my mom.’ 

Malcolm later mentions his lack of romantic choices by asking ‘Why should I get to meet someone who’s smart, funny, not a Krelborne, not a member of my family?’

As such, in the small MitM fandom, Reese/Malcolm is a popular pairing. 

The closest in age, attending the same school and graduating in the same class, these two naturally pair up to socialise, rather than with Dewey who is several years younger. They’re both outcasts, but bonding together seems to aid their self-esteem, if not self-awareness – in one episode they vow to recognise why they alienate people, in which they realise they’re their own problem, before deciding they prefer denial. 

They often plan trips and events together such as attending Burning Man or crashing parties together. Sweetly, when terrified at a carnival, it’s their instinct to hold hands. Malcolm helps Reese train for cheerleading (or, as he puts it ‘I spent the entire day with your head up my ass!’) 

They also have the bitterest arguments of the family – Lois links this to their hormones with the comparison to dogs who need to be fixed, after a particularly destructive competition. 

Despite Malcolm’s intellect, he’s as interested in TV, video games, and pranks as Reese, and the two often unite. One would expect Malcolm to easily outmatch Reese, but Reese’s strength for trouble (he can’t tell which colour blue and yellow make, but when offered fireworks, easily differentiates the need for aluminium) and disregard for his own welfare make him a formidable opponent. 

At times, Malcolm even envies Reese’s abilities to live in the moment and ‘switch off’. In one episode, Reese plays Cyrano for Malcolm and ‘stupid girl’ Alison. While Stevie is irritated by Malcolm’s ‘acting like Reese’; Malcolm notes how he feels more happy and relaxed, comparing Reese’s ability to make conversation with Alison as ‘genius’, and telling Alison how well he and his brother get along now. 

Reese repeatedly helps Malcolm and even Stevie with girls, despite his own lack of success with the opposite sex, and protects his brother against bullies, as well as against their mom. When Malcolm, embarrassed at school by Lois, and hoping to be sent to military school by stealing a car, Reese stands in front of it, as he’d ‘rather die’ than be left alone with their mom. 

Likewise, Malcolm defends Reese, tutoring him, taking care of him after a fight, bringing him soda, and even risking his own academic career – his one escape from poverty and his mother’s influence – to protect Reese. 

Grandmother Ida, who favours Reese due to his physical strength, tells Reese that to become a man and marry her servant, Raduca, he must fight Malcolm. Reese sincerely thanks Malcolm for his participation. Malcolm corrects him, telling him the only reason he’s agreed to is to keep him from ‘flushing his life down the toilet’. 

In one episode, Mr Herkabe persuades Malcolm into a psychological experiment involving spying on Reese. Reese is thrilled at the sudden closeness, confessing he wishes they could be this way forever (to further the subtext, he’s confessing this to a wishing ‘hole’ in a tree. ‘I’ve got a hole you can whisper into!’) Malcolm throws himself on his sword, announcing not only everyone else’s secrets, levelling the playing field; but his own, getting himself suspended in the process. 

Both can also be jealous. When Dewey, who normally has it in for Reese, spends time with him alone, Malcolm is stung at the exclusion. Similarly, as graduation approaches, Reese is resentful that with the short time left before Malcolm leaves for college, Malcolm is spending it with Stevie. 

Neither maintains a long term relationship. Both express what they term as a ‘healthy’ interest in the opposite sex from afar (catalogues, billboards) but in person self-sabotage or panic. Malcolm discovering his friend Cynthia has grown large breasts shrieks ‘Mommy’ and admits ‘they scared me’, Reese screams at Stevie’s mom, later wondering: ‘why’d I do that?’ 

Discussing the issue in the sewers with Stevie, the isolation of which provokes a new honesty, they quickly pinpoint their issues, Reese acknowledging that he’s ‘mean’ to girls because he fears being hurt and doesn’t know what to say, while Malcolm recognises that he forgets they’re people with their own will and needs, due to his desire for control. They also express the desire for someone to hang out with, talk to and share poetry with, but end up reading it to each other. 

Malcolm seems torn between girls he shares common ground with, but blows it by self-sabotage; and status objects.   
Interestingly, he’s also drawn to girls female equivalent of Reese: Beth, Reese’s girlfriend at the time, and Alison, who Reese helps him speak to, and who eventually leaves him for his brother. 

The boys rarely compete over girls, and when there is a conflict, their relationship takes precedence. Upon Malcolm’s request to let him speak to a girl he likes, Reese brushes her off with ‘sorry, I’m gay’, and his brother’s betrayal with Beth affects far more than the girl herself, causing Reese to join the army. Malcolm is fraught with guilt, and upon Reese’s return hugs him and tells him how glad he is, until Reese’s ‘don’t ‘mo me.’ 

In one episode, Malcolm suggests, apropros of nothing, that if he loses a bet, he will kiss Reese’s butt publically, gleefully anticipated by Reese.

Malcolm nearly loses his virginity at a high school party, but both are too drunk. He confesses this at dinner, saying ‘I’m probably gay’. This estimation is shared by his grandmother Ida, who is convinced ‘this one doesn’t like girls.’ 

Insecure masculinity is a theme – the milquestoast Hal, despite his own prominent feminine side, polices the boys over gender norms (Dewey realises at six that the way to get a new toy gun is to pretend to be hosting a tea party, and when he asks to be the girl on a board game box, Hal says ‘not on my watch, son’. Hal also ‘refuses to live in a house with a gay doorbell’.)

The boys also police each other – Reese is horrified when Dewey attends school with a purse, explaining that ‘boys like me look at things like that’ and that he will be victimised. Dewey punishes Reese and Malcolm by having them read to him in full makeup and gowns. When Lois offers Reese a pink shirt at the mall, he defensively says ‘if you’ve got something to say, say it!’ 

Cynthia, the female Krelboyne, and Malcolm bond over jokes about whether or not Dabney and Lloyd are gay. Dabney, paralleling the Wilkersons with an overbearing mother and his Freudian fixation with her, refers to Malcolm as ‘bitter, sarcastic and handsome’. Lloyd notes the ‘queen is the most powerful position in chess’ and the next episode, Reese approaches him, offering him punch at a school dance. 

If Malcolm is neurotic about his own sexuality and gender norms, Reese is even more so. Sometimes down to cluelessness (hearing his cousin has two dads, he exclaims ‘that house has got to be a dude’s paradise!’) he also uses it as a distraction (when trying to occupy his father, he says he’s ‘blanking’ on how babies are made ‘two guys, right?’   
Hal’s tolerance is also tested when, upon discovering Lois altered her teenage self for a boy, Reese asks his father whether someone should ‘change for a hot guy’? Hal supportively queries ‘Burt Reynolds hot or Sting hot?’ 

He becomes a cheerleader in an early episode, wanders through a meadow with a fellow bully, toys with entrapping men on the internet (his ploy backfiring when he blackmails his neighbour and ends up in his debt and massaging), and goes in drag to hide from the army, ending up married to an Afghan man, for whom his being a guy ‘wasn’t a deal-breaker.’ A later episode has him discovering he has the mathematical beauty of a middle-aged woman. 

Reese has very little biological knowledge of women, unaware of breastfeeding as a teenager, and when in a sexless marriage to Raduca, notes she ‘might have a tail – I don’t know what’s going on back there’. Raduca marriage never consummated, revealed to be sleeping with the man she describes as her brother.   
He initially dates Alison, but is dumped for his unenthusiastic attitude – he would ‘rather die’ than take her to a dance. 

There’s also a theme of prostitution metaphors involving Reese, such as him deciding to become an escort or the dancing companion for the elderly. 

While he mentions crushes on various girls, by the end season he doesn’t seem interested in them sexually. His convoluted plan to see Cynthia’s breasts involves ‘reveal embarrassing secret, cry’ to achieve intimacy fails apart, like his brother’s relationships, due to his own self-centredness. In the penultimate episode, the date he escorts is won over and offers to finish the night with him, only for him to reject her as he’s ‘off the clock’. 

The most revealing episode is ‘Army Buddy’ in which his first friend, Abby, arrives for a visit. Abby and Reese have a sibling-esque relationship, composed of insults and wrestling, which Malcolm views as ‘their own kind of foreplay’, and that she’s ‘crazy for you’. 

Reese is horrified, thinking that the sexual element cheapens the friendship and makes it ‘ugly’, but Abby’s crush on Lois, causing her to primp (Reese describes as ‘getting fem’) is mistaken for a crush on Reese. Reese initially hides in the closet (literally), but Malcolm’s encouragement causes him to offer his virginity to Abby. Abby rejects him, telling him she’s gay, to which he replies ‘this is fantastic! We’re buddies again!’ Reese, despite his fascination with gender norms, doesn’t appear to detect Abby’s sexuality, perhaps due to his own cluelessness. 

Malcolm also has a unique kinship with a lesbian, Ronnie, who writes a story in the school magazine he’s editing. Malcolm isn’t usually often moved by principle for outsiders, but her story strikes a chord and he goes to bat when it’s censored for obscenity. The heteronormativity of the Wilkerson upbringing perhaps contributes to the boys’ confusions – for example, when Malcolm explains the arbitrary nature of the censorship and why it irritates him, his family assume he’s motivated by a crush on the girl. When he corrects them, mentioning that she’s a lesbian, Hal blithely explains it’s his enthusiasm that probably ‘turned her gay in the first place’. 

When manipulative neighbour Jessica finagles a trip to Mamma Mia, the boys anger provokes her into demonstrating how easily persuadable they are. With Malcolm, she points out Reese’s constant anger, obsession with his hair, men’s health magazines and cooking as evidence he’s gay. Reese needs no such persuasion, ‘Malcolm’s gay? I knew it.’ 

The boys sweetly try to reassure each other of their acceptance, (in a previous episode, an edit of them in an adult film resulted in Malcolm going to lengths to reiterate he’s not homophobic, while Reese is insulted only at the abs of the actor playing him.) culminating in Malcolm offering resources for gay teens, while Reese gives him a porno, noting that of the ‘10 or 12’ he watched, ‘this is the best’. Malcolm denies being gay, to which Reese smiles and says ‘watch these and tell me you’re not.’   
The plot resolves with Reese’s idea for revenge – giving Malcolm a hickey, which Jessica is blamed for. 

The series ends with Reese, a virgin, living with Craig, who previously been shown to view Reese in ‘that’ way, referring to an outing as a date; baking for him and bickering over which homeware is ‘gay’, and working as a full-time janitor at old school. The last shot of them features Malcolm in his matching janitorial uniform at Harvard, as they chatter on the phone: ‘Talk to you later.’ 

**Links**   
[Recs](http://merry-melody.tumblr.com/post/143233515398/do-you-still-ship-wilkercest-if-so-can-you-rec)   
[Tumblr tag](http://merry-melody.tumblr.com/tagged/malcolm-in-the-middle)   
[TV Tropes Fridge Logic](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fridge/MalcolmInTheMiddle)   
[TV Tropes Wild Mass Guessing](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/MalcolmInTheMiddle)   
[FF.net topic](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/68541/25602990/1/Wilkercest)   
[Non A03 fic](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1229899/usedusernames)   
[Non A03 fic](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/68541/30175959/1/Fanfic-Excerpts)   
[Non A03 fic](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/3357520/Absalom2692)   
[Non A03 fic](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/810095/poxmaker)   
[Non A03 fic](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8921957/1/Reese-s-Soliloquy)   
[Non A03 fic](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/852348/1/Mixed-Up-Young-Delinquent)


End file.
